Thanks Robert! >If you worked at the South Pole Station you could see flares 24 hours a day for months at a time. I just looked up the iridium flares at the Amundsen-Scott south pole station in Antarctica, Lat. -89.9975 degrees and Lon. +139.272778 degrees. Heavens-Above lists 176 flares for May 11 alone! From midnight to 8:17 AM there are 28 of magnitude -8 flares! After that, for the rest of the "day" they aren't as bright...too bad. :~) The sun does not rise at all there right now. Anybody know of someone in Antarctica that would like to tell the rest of us what it's like to see that many flares in a day? By the way, in case any of you are feeling envious of the people at Amundsen-Scott, it is currently -78° F / -61° C with a wind-chill of -117° F / -83° C. And carbon dioxide freezes at what temperature? ;~) Tom NE Iowa USA ..... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert G Fenske Jr" <fenske@rgfpc.electro.swri.edu> To: "Satellite Observer's Mailing List" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 6:17 PM Subject: Re: Are iridium flares less common in some areas? On Fri, 10 May 2002, Tom Wagner wrote: > Do iridium flares occur less often is some areas of the world? I wonder > because when I look for them at a location of a friend, that is 8.7452°N, > 167.7395°E, they seem to be less numerous than they are at my place at > 42.473513°N, 92.360413°W. With the Iridium's 86 degree inclinations, areas closer to the equator will see fewer flares because there will be fewer visible passes per unit area. For Iridium flares you would be best positioned very near the poles. If you worked at the South Pole Station you could see flares 24 hours a day for months at a time. In general, the closer your latitude is to a satellite's inclination the more passes you will have for that satellite. Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series: Southwest Research Institute /R---\ | Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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